Celebrities like Bill Gates are vulnerable to being victimized by
humorists who plant things about them on email and web pages. When I
saw the rules, they had a suspicious ring to them that signaled
something fishy. If you google bill gates rules hoax, this is what
comes up.

Bill Gates Stories. There are a number of tall tales told about Bill
Gates. Most recently, many newspapers credited him with writing 11
rules for high school students, including "Be nice to nerds." He
didn't write them; humorist Charlies Sykes did. In various other
stories, he has bought the Catholic Church and the Vatican, he has
bought the US Government, and so on. These are pretty obviously
jokes, but what about the chain letter going around that Microsoft
and Gates are testing a new e-mail system, and everyone who
participates by following the instructions in the letter will receive
$1000 for their help when the test is over? A lot of people have
passed that one along, just in case. Microsoft denies it.

Hoaxes like this work because they are sort of believable if you do
not like Gates. The ideas on the list are still worth discussing
because many people believe them, but we should not attribute them to
Gates.